Finding yourself in a new and strange part of Nova Prospekt, you have no other choice but to starve to death or try to escape.
It will require thinking as well as fighting.
Overlook nothing, or your fate will be taken out of your hands – good luck.
Basic Details
- Title: Nova Prospekt: Utility
- Filename: hl2-sp-nova-prospekt-utility.7z
- Size : 1.03MB
- Author: Bastion
- Date Released: 20 September 2015
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Download to your HDD [1.03MB]
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Manual Installation Instructions
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
- Copy the maps folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\common\Half-Life 2\ep2\ folder.
- Launch Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- Open the console and type map NP_Utility_01_V2 and now press ENTER.
Videos
Screenshots
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 14 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 11 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 26 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 10 Mins by Daken50
Longest: 0 Hours, 50 Mins by Steve
Total Time Played: 6 Hours, 4 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 11 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 26 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 10 Mins by Daken50
Longest: 0 Hours, 50 Mins by Steve
Total Time Played: 6 Hours, 4 Mins
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Well, this was a nice surprise. Bastion had recently joined the site and mentioned in his Introduce Yourself post a map he had made. I asked if it was SP and luckily for us, it was and this is it.
Overall, I enjoyed the experience but as with a lot of SP maps, especially the shorter/smaller ones, many of the room/area joins seems disconnected. It can be hard to fit new areas together with no obvious story and setting behind them.
I felt that there were too many “stacking boxes to move on” sections, but I’m pretty sure I did things in the wrong order at least once. I’m unclear why the sniper only shot the Combine, but grateful nonetheless.
The Combine Gunship caused me a few issues and the final section seemed a little “forced”.
However, I did enjoy playing it and feel you probably will too.
Using Gauge
Medium
28 Minutes
I’m glad you enjoyed what I had placed in this map, being the first proper attempt in HL2 mapping for me, I felt quite pleased with the end result, despite a bit of confusion I had myself.
I may as well explain myself with the sniper, I had originally intended this to be a collection of levels inside a mod, although things in the end happened to come along and stop me in my track, as a result, I did not make the other level explaining it; however if you want to know it is a rebel inside Nova prospekt giving you assistance.
Still got to get a grip on proper pacing when it comes to single Player but I’m getting there, I will make sure to keep your feedback in mind as I work on my VerticleVille Two submission.
I recorded my gameplay and annotated it. It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRxZZIy8g_8
I have a few pointers to make about this map.
– When the player has to stack stuff to advance in the map, please give the player some non-breakable things to stack. Otherwise the player might get stuck, like I did.
– 90% of the non-action parts of this map involved stacking stuff. Some more variety would be nice.
– Some NPCs behaved weirdly. Maybe something to do with AI nodes or NPCs’ placement in the map. You’ll find out what I mean if you watch my gameplay video.
– I liked how you prevented the player from simply walking backwards in the place where burning explosive barrels are rolled towards the player.
– The finale is not a very interesting place for a gunship battle and the way the combine soldiers are introduced right as the gunship dies is very unfair depending on where exactly the player happens to be at that moment.
Overall I found this map fairly enjoyable and I felt that it was worth playing.
Manually
Medium
17 Minutes
For some reason mine is broken where you reach the sniper nest area. A panel sound (like, moving panel mechanics) happens and the black background drops, and then I’m in the Land of Nodraw Orange. It’s pretty neat, but I have to assume that’s an unexpected occurrence.
Pretty enjoyable except for the unfinished areas. On the downside you can trap yourself in a few places if you break the boxes. The author needs to make sure the player can always move on no matter what.
Manually
Easy
20 Minutes
a excellent first map from bastion …. i enjoyed the way you had to stack boxes to move on,however as miigga stated you need to ensure these are no breakable …. but apart from that it was a thoroughly good map
as with all new/novice mappers the content can only get better … bastion will take on board any criticisms and future maps/mods will be better …..
well done mate and a thoroughly deserved “play it now ” !
Manually
Easy
41 Minutes
Great map, but I got so far then was in the land of orange, didn’t know what to do after that, but it was good up to that. Appreciate what you are saying about non breakable stacking boxes, couldn’t be bothered to go back and re-do it so simply no-clipped…I probably missed something, or a map change didn’t happen…but yeah, was good.
I am pretty sure that the small orange room is the end of the map.
This was an excellent start to what I hope will be a lot of great maps from Bastion!
While I did have some problems (exiting kind of in the wrong direction as my post above indicates) that will give me more to work with to help troubleshoot and give constructive critique.
The map wasn’t large, though definitely was more sprawling than I would expect for a ‘small’ map. I liked the use of textures and interiors, though would like to have seen a bit more exterior and eventually some vistas outside entirely.
I don’t think I had a problem dealing with breakable boxes, but I had read some of the comments before starting out too, and was a little more careful for that reason. I do think it was a *good* use of most of those locations where it was tough to reach backwards – because like Valve maps: if you can’t go back, that’s because you’re on the right track forward. Perhaps a little overused in this case, but there was also some excellent backtracking and seeing-where-to-go areas too. The bit with the two turrets and grating, with some combine, that was quite good in that regard.
Like I said above though, I did break out of the map improperly where you’re near the sniper’s nest. The bridge you’re meant to enter by means of hitting the grating on the side, was not really apparent as something you could enter at all, even with the presence of ‘dead thing guts’ visible. I jumped on top of it in the effort to reach the other side, and found myself on the rooftop. I also did that at the very end after the gunship fight, since if you’re quite careful and don’t blow up the one explosive barrel, you can jump onto that and up to the rooftops.
In future maps, I would strongly suggest ways of preventing people from being able to do that, unless there’s enough exploration available and still be able to get back to where they need to be to finish the area. I’m not all for invisible walls, that said, because a visual indication of ‘don’t bother going here, it’s not important’ would be better than fighting tooth and nail to get up somewhere only to see nothing but an orange landscape if that.
There were a good number of ‘yelp’ moments, when I’d get jumped by a headcrab or those burning barrels.
All in all, an exceptional first map, and well worth playing.
Manually
Medium
35 Minutes
It has its moments of fun, but it’s way too heavy on the stacking puzzles to be enjoyable for me. By the time you reach a point where you have to stack not two, not three, but four things in a tower to escape, you start to wonder if you’re wasting your time. Or why the author thought this would be fun. Especially with a turret surprising you from behind as you scale your tower of junk. I’m also not sure why the player wasn’t given the Gravity Gun from the beginning as it probably would have made all these stacking segments a lot easier.
The rest of the map was fairly inoffensive and builds to a weird showdown against a Gunship at nearly point-blank range. The level doesn’t end properly, leaving the player in dev texture purgatory.
Manually
Medium
15 Minutes
Enjoyable experience that felt a little bit down when you move to the end.. texturing is less interesting and puzzle even if original frustrates me more got to the same area as Zekiran
for a first one it was something interesting
Using Gauge
Medium
40 Minutes
Yeah I’m a little unsure about this, I enjoyed the scene it created but it didn’t flow.. though the puzzles which were simple (I appreciated that!) but the part with the sniper and getting the grav gun didn’t make any sense to me.
Pretty cool map overall though. I enjoyed it.
Manually
Medium
50 Minutes
Well, there are some pretty clever combat scenarios. A few times you approach enemies from behind which makes it a bit easy. There’s one really tough ambush with multiple shotgunners. The visuals are decent but the lighting is a bit odd at points. There’s one big issue with the map: the stacking puzzles. There are a lot of stacking puzzles, and the author made the mistake of making the things you stack breakable. When I see a box like that, my first instinct is to break it, and even then the enemies can easily break them as well, forcing you to noclip or load a save. There’s an area with a big shootout and a gunship, but even noclipping around I just can’t figure out how to get there. Overall, it’s good for a first map, but it has a few issues.
I really don’t like to make Maybe? recommendations. Because I feel they’re too bland and just very neutral. And to be honest I didn’t like my game play experience in this map, due to I had to use “noclip” cheat more than once.
Anyway Is nice this map is from a member of this cool RTSHL community. So I consider we should support our mapping developers.
I felt this map very cramped in all areas, very, very narrow areas. Combat was OK and a bit challenging but the whole concept felt unrealistic, and I mean by that, that the place didn’t felt like Nova Prospekt at all. because very little CMB textures were in there.
I really didn’t like the ending, though combat the Gunship was a nice finale. But I insist that I don’t
like having a dead end map. Because make it feel unfinished.
Anyway play it If you already have played everything out there. And if you want your HL2 dose.
Using Gauge
Medium
25 Minutes
Just awful! I do not understand how you can play it. Half of the total playing time I did a mountain of boxes and tried to figure out where to go next. It is not energetic and boring map.
Manually
Hard
30 Minutes
Clever. I liked this map. It was well thought, especially the segment where you pick up the Gravity Gun and need to stack things on top of each other to progress further, but the objects could’ve been chosen better. I know carts are common but they were awful to use. This kind of puzzle was also getting annoying by the end.
Enemy placement was good but there was one moment which I thought was not thought very well on harder difficulties, meaning the point where you walk up the ramp and Combine troopers are above you, firing behind fences. If only they were made to use SMG’s it would have been infinitely better. The place doesn’t look very reminiscent of Nova Prospekt at all.
My favourite moment was when you had to use an object to enter the vent. I don’t know if there were other means to achieve this but I used the long table. Nice combination of physics there.
I’m afraid I didn’t finish this map since there was no gunship fight, only got as far as entering the “headcrab vent”. One grate was transparent and you could see things from the other side so I’d presume it was a glitch.
Overall, Nova Prospekt: Utility is worth trying, but do not expect anything revolutionary.
Manually
Hard
20 Minutes
For a first map, this is pretty decent. But as you can expect from a first map, there are misaligned textures and props, underdetailed environments, etc.
You can get out of the map pretty easily, especially at the part with the Sniper.
One of the most annoying things for me was that you often had to progress by stacking props. This is not that bad if it’s done with crates or barrels, or when you don’t have to stack a lot of props, but here you sometimes have props which are a pain to stand on, and you have to place four on each other to progress.
In the final area with the Gunship I was totally lost as to what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t find the RPG. After 5 minutes I searched up a walkthrough and saw that it was laying on the ammo crate, but for me it wasn’t. I believe this might have been because I threw back grenades with my Gravity Gun, and the explosions must have knocked it out of the map.
Overall a decent first map, but not sure if I would recommend it.
Manually
Medium
20 Minutes
Looks ok, plays good.
Manually
Easy
10 Minutes
Not a bad map. Sometimes it was hard to stack the props ( Especially the cart things ) . It also Didn’t explain the friendly sniper , but it was still a very fun mod.
Manually
Medium
13 Minutes
Map is interesting with easy combat and stacking but when it comes to stacking, you could easily break out of the map. Picture these for example like out of bounds and invisible enemies.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2914826317
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2914826363